Chapter 1

For my EDUC 250 class (Educating Exceptional Students) ability project I have chosen to read a book and blog all the while. As the title of this blog suggests, the book I chose is titled Somebody Else's Kids by Torey L. Hayden. Before picking it from the list I really had no idea what to expect, other than that it would have something to do with a student with an exceptionality.

The first chapter opens with the narrator talking about the 'vacuum'. The vacuum they speak of has to do with the process of mainstreaming students into the classroom who were previously in self-contained special education rooms. As I read further, I came to find out that the narrator's name is Torey (the author), and she was the teacher of a self-contained special education classroom until Public Law 94-142, which we have discussed in class, was passed. After that, the children in her classroom were sent to general education rooms, and she was sent to work as a resource teacher in another school across town.

Two years later, the director of special education in the district asks Torey if she would be willing to take on a student that has been driving his general education teacher crazy. His name is Booth, or "Boo" as they refer to him in the book, and he is assumed to be autistic. He is seven years old and still in a half day kindergarten classroom (at the school she PREVIOUSLY) taught at. Torey was nervous to take on the task at first because her new room was not really equipped for that type of teaching anymore, but she decided to agree to the task.

The first day Boo comes to class she has a hard time getting him to do things as soon as he gets into the classroom. His mother had barely said anything to him before she left, which I found really sad being that he is already a student who needs extra help and now he is being put into a totally new and possibly scary situation. Boo tends to repeat the things Torey says straight back to him, without actually doing any of the things she is asking. Suddenly, Boo starts screaming and eventually runs out of the classroom. This is where Chapter 1 ends.

I am already extremely interested in this story. It is much more interesting to hear a first person narrative of a situation than reading it in a textbook. Real life experiences in my opinion are the best tools for learning. That being said, I cannot imagine the stress I would feel if on my first day with a student in a somewhat new situation for me, the student started screaming and ran out of the classroom! I can't even think about how scared I would be of every bad thing that could possibly happen. It was very interesting for me to read about how Boo acts (repeating things softly, etc.) because one summer while I was teaching tennis to elementary students, there was a boy with autism who did the exact same thing. Luckily we didn't have any incidents, but we did have to make some accommodations for his learning.

I cannot wait to read the rest of this book!